PIAINS OF THE ELBE, ODEE, AND VISTULA. 



315 



Arcona is inferior in height to the Stubbenkammer, but its weather-worn cliffs 

 are of far more formidable aspect. Upon its summit stood, until the middle 

 of the twelfth century, the four-headed idol of the Wends. The chalk in the 

 greater part of the island is covered with clay, sand, or gravel, and huge boulders 

 of Scandinavian granite are scattered over it. Small lakes, gradually changing 

 into peat bogs, occupy the cavities in the calcareous soil. 



Fig. 182.— The Cliffs of thk Konigsstuhl on Eugen. 



Inhabitants. 



RuGEN and Mecklenburg are rich in prehistoric remains. Fortified camps are 

 very numerous on Riigen, most of them dating no further back than the days of 

 expiring heathenism. One of them, known as Rugard, was occupied until after 

 the introduction of Christianity in the seventeenth century. The commentators 

 of Tacitus identified one of these camps with a supposed temple dedicated to 

 Hertha, or Nerthus, the " Mother of the Earth," of the ancient Germans. In 

 Mecklenburg fortifications are equally numerous, but they do not occupy hills, 

 being for the most part constructed in the centre of marshes and lakes. About 



